Macho Outdoorsmen Get Real

Filed in archive Mountain Climbing on September 29, 2006

A must-read for any armchair expeditioner or real outdoorsperson who likes to share adventures is the Black Dome's Asheville Outdoors Guide's Secret Climbs In Lost Places.

Not only does the writer have a gripping way of describing this climbing adventure, he's honest and hilarious. Here are some tidbits:

My arms were rapidly swelling like wieners in the microwave. I whimpered pathetically. No place to rest, no way to retreat, hurry, hurry, hurry. I climbed fast but the pump was catching up. I raced toward a chockstone fifty feet above and draped in old nylon slings. Finally, desperate, I clutched a fistful of the healthiest looking tat, clipped it and hung like a whipped dog. Sniveling, I caught my breath, swallowed back the threatening vomit, and leaned back to inspect the second half of the pitch...

Mark surely would remember every feature of this void, had there been any at all. I've always considered him somewhat of a specialist at scaling blank friction slabs, so when in a quavering voice he announced he was about ready to die, I began to feel concern. I think he might have found a place for a teensy brass nut, but that thing wouldn't have even slowed his plummeting, trundling carcass...

Well, I found it funny anyway. And since the two lived to tell the tale, it couldn't have been all that bad, right?